Glass integrated optics: Lasers, filters, and nonlinear devices

The design, fabrication, and characterization of waveguide grating filters, rare earth-doped waveguide lasers, and nonlinear devices in glass are described. Despite the fact that optical integrated circuits can be fabricated in many different substrates, glass remains an attractive material because it is inexpensive, durable, and virtually transparent at visible and near infrared wavelengths. Integrated waveguides can be fabricated rather simply in glasses by ion exchange, and rare-earth doping allows the demonstration of active devices such as lasers and amplifiers.; The first chirped grating integrated optic dispersion compensator was designed and fabricated. The device operated at 800 nm and exhibited a reflection bandwidth in excess of 0.5 nm, and a nearly quadratic phase response corresponding to a fiber dispersion-length product of 58.0 ps/nm. The chirped grating was implemented using a curved waveguide approach.; Single frequency waveguide lasers were investigated in both distributed Bragg reflector (DBR) and distributed feedback (DFB) configurations. DBR devices were fabricated in neodymium-doped glass and shown to lase in a single frequency at 1060 nm with efficiencies above 3%, and thresholds below 40 mW. A theoretical investigation of chirped grating DFB waveguide lasers was performed which involved both modeling and analysis. Designs were developed for devices with low threshold gain, good secondary mode suppression, and reduced spatial hole burning.; A neodymium-doped waveguide laser was passively Q-switched using a dye saturable absorber. The compact, monolithic device emitted 3.0 ns Q-switched pulses with peak powers of 15.8 W, which is the best performance reported to date for a passively Q-switched waveguide laser. Peak powers as high as 1.14 kW, and pulse widths as low as 0.80 ns should be achievable by optimizing device parameters.; A study of quasi-phase-matched (QPM) second harmonic generation (SHG) in electrically poled fused silica waveguides was performed. It was experimentally verified that significant second order nonlinearities could be created in bulk fused silica, and that waveguides could be fabricated in these poled samples by electron beam irradiation and ion implantation. Theoretical calculations for QPM SHG reveal that efficiencies on the order of {dollar}10sp{lcub}-3{rcub}{dollar} %/watt should be possible.